


Our Stolen Future

by sunaddicted



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Feels, Blood Drinking, Blood and Violence, Character Turned Into Vampire, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gift Giving, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Blood Drinking, Post-Canon, Vampire Slayer(s), Vampire Turning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:48:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26377546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted
Summary: In hindsight, Guillermo really should have imagined that things would go spectacularly wrong: he might have been a descendant of Van Helsing and yes, he did have more intentional slayings rather than accidental ones under his belt at that point but he still was human, mortal andalone; there were no Mosquito Collectors, no friends, no family -nothing.
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless, Laszlo Cravensworth/Nadja
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49





	Our Stolen Future

_Our Stolen Future_

_i._

The first time Guillermo had left, it hadn’t really hurt: he had been far too eager to be turned by Celeste to think about what - _who_ \- he was leaving behind, there was no doubt in his mind that after three months he would be back home, grinning up at Nandor with fangs peeking out from his upper lip.

The second time Guillermo had left, it had been excruciating: he was forcing _them_ apart to protect Nandor from his own violent nature, there was a weight on his shoulders that ruthlessly bent them in a sad slope - that made him wonder about whether he really wasn’t destined to be a vampire afterall, his blood simply _wrong_.

The third time Guillermo had left, it had been fuelled by anger and tiredness - he had deserved so much better than a scolding about how he hadn’t been there to attend the vampires’ every whim. There had been vampire blood and ashes congealing on his skin, mixed up with his sweat, and he had barely gotten a _thank you_ \- what else was he exactly expected to do to be deemed worthy?

Guillermo had driven them home with a hard frown deforming his face, pulling at muscles that already hurt - not even Colin Robinson had dared to sap away at the nervous energy that filled up the car, his eyes a boring grey-blue for the whole ride home. Somehow, deep down, Guillermo had wished for the energy vampire to free him of all the ugly feelings agitating in the depths of his belly like the worms he sometimes saw wriggling around rotten flesh, feeding upon the vampires’ meals - nothing left to waste: not the corpses, not his uselessly complicated emotions.

He had left them there to extricate themselves out of the car while he had stormed inside to take his mini fridge, hand wavering over the glitter portrait after deciding that it could stay there to keep company to the blood-stained sweaters he had already abandoned twice, deemed hopeless again and again during the past times he had left behind a decade of exploitation and shattered dreams.

In the end, the good times couldn’t really outweigh the bad and as he ducked his head low to avoid Nandor’s gaze as he climbed back behind the steering wheel, there was a sense of finality in his chest: _he would never be back again_.

* * *

In hindsight, Guillermo really should have imagined that things would go spectacularly wrong: he might have been a descendant of Van Helsing and yes, he did have more intentional slayings rather than accidental ones under his belt at that point but he still was human, mortal and _alone_ ; there were no Mosquito Collectors, no friends, no family - _nothing_.

He slept in his car and scoured the internet for the wackiest forums, collecting here and there information about possible covens to stalk and eradicate as efficiently as possible.

Sometimes he caught them in their slumber, helpless as the glowing sunlight kept them dead in their coffins; Guillermo always felt the most guilty about those killings, what was left in him of the devotion of a familiar flaring up anxiously at the thought of someone as deranged as he was staking Nandor through the chest while he slept the daylight away, elegant hands rough with calloused crossed over his sternum in a way that had always reminded Guillermo of the beautiful statues adorning old cemeteries, the marble spotted with dust and lichens.

Sometimes he got to destination too late in the day, twilight already painting the sky a purple rapidly dissolving into the dark blue of night and the vampires were awake - maybe not ready to fight, maybe with their veins empty still - and he got away with bruises, aching bones, bloody gashes. Guillermo could fool himself into thinking that he had just been defending himself, if he conveniently ignored that he had sought the vampires out and broken into their homes with the intent of _murdering_ them.

Had someone asked him why he did it - why he hadn’t gone back home to his _mamà_ , to the comfort of freshly baked _empanadas_ and some job that would last him until retirement - Guillermo wasn’t sure that he could put an answer into words, not intelligible ones at least; he wasn’t doing it out of hatred for the vampire kind, he wasn’t doing it because it exorcised the frustration and disappointment accumulated over years of being a familiar, he didn’t do it because he particularly cared about the human lives that were snuffed out nightly in order to feed a hunger more ancient than Guillermo could wrap his head around sometimes.

Maybe it was the feeling of displacement in a human society apparently devoid of any magic that had pushed him to embrace whatever miniscule percentage of Van Helsing blood that cursed through his veins; after a decade of living in a dark fairytale populated by vampires, ghosts, witches and lycanthropes, in no way Guillermo could imagine going back to his life, selling overpriced breakfasts to investors and lawyers at Panera Bread - as if he didn’t know that there was a society parallel to their own thriving in the dark, built on blood and death and shadows.

He just couldn’t go back to being a familiar.

Though, if he had, maybe he wouldn’t be slithering past familiar perfectly manicured vagina-shaped topiaries with his throat torn open and vampire blood crusted around his mouth, not substituted yet by a human offering - not that the blood was ever offered: it was always taken, brutally stolen. Guillermo tightened his hand around the stake, splintered and blackened with more blood, even as some kind of new instinct screamed at him to stay the fuck away from pointy pieces of wood, no matter the fact that he was the one currently wielding it: who knew when the tables would be turned on him - when the stake would be wrestled out of his grip and hammered past its ribs to be embedded in his dead heart.

He still hadn’t gotten used to the lack of a pulse, the silence in his own chest was deafening while he lay in the trunk of his car during the day, hoping - _praying_ even if it made his tongue burn - that nobody would steal it and pop the trunk open in the sunshine: after having spent his entire life wishing to be a vampire, it would have been quite ridiculous for his immortal life to be struck down at its very beginning because someone had accidentally fried him to a crisp in the sun - or maybe, it would just be karma coming back at him for all the vampires he had slayed in the past months.

Guillermo took a deep and useless breath, his ribcage barely expanding at the effort as his lungs stayed dead and inert, and made his way to the door, forcing himself to rap his knuckles against the wood, louder than necessary; now he knew just how sensitive a vampire’s hearing could be but he still struggled to calibrate his noisiness to such a new sensitivity, he made himself dizzy and disoriented with the echoing of his own steps - as if the world wasn’t loud enough already.

Still, he listened in on the noises coming from the house.

“I opened the door the last time!”

“Well, if you still had Gizmo-!”

“But nooo! Complaining about the laundry was vital!”

“You fucking…! You could look for a familiar of your own, you know? Why does it have to be always me who finds the good familiars and has to share them”

“Because you’re the picky one, you stupid bloody donkey! Now go and open the fucking door - I’m peckish, maybe it’s snack time”

Well, Nadja was going to be disappointed.

They were _all_ going to be disappointed: it seemed like he hadn’t been replaced as a familiar yet - that he was being missed, even.

Guillermo tried to not let it go to his head.

“Guillermo?”

“Hello, Nandor”

The vampire blinked, taking in the sight of the man in front of him while his brain had already picked up on the lack of the delicious and warm smell that had always seemed to follow his familiar like a cloud, constantly tempting him with its sweet spiciness “What’s happened to you?”

“It’s a long story” well, not really: it was easily summed up in a few sentences that Guillermo definitely hadn’t been rehearsing in his waking hours “May I come in?”

Nandor moved to the side, head tilted in a welcoming manner.

“I’m going to need you to invite me in, Nandor”

Right.

 _Fuck_.

“Come in, Guillermo”

_What the fucking fuck._

* * *

_ii._

Every single time Guillermo had left it had been excruciating. 

As a warlord, he had sustained plenty of injuries in his life - bloody, gruesome and life-threatening. He knew perfectly well how being stabbed through felt and despite never having taken a stake to the heart, Nandor had absolutely no doubts about the fact that it would have hurt less than waking up to his crypt empty, devoid of Guillermo's comforting and familiar presence. 

He knew - not only because his roommates had been rather vocal in their complaint - that he could have done something to keep Guillermo by his side: he could have talked his familiar down from the high of anger and frustration and adrenaline; he could have admitted that his reaction had been dictated by fear; he could have _apologised_. 

Guillermo deserved to hear more than one apology drip from his mouth. 

If only he had realised that sooner. 

If only he had been _braver_. 

Nandor knew humans had a saying about crying and milk - he didn’t exactly remember the wording nor he was sure he had ever actually understood it but whatever it was, it probably applied to the situation. So, Nandor didn’t buy milk - easy, considered the fact that nobody in the house would have ever wanted to come into contact with the stuff - and he didn’t cry, which was a slightly harder thing to do since he kind of wanted to do it; he couldn’t really remember the last time he had cried, his memory could barely recall the feeling of tears sliding down his cheeks or that of sobs wracking through his ribcage.

It was supposed to feel cathartic, wasn’t it?

But it wouldn’t be like having Guillermo back.

 _Nothing would ever be like having Guillermo back_.

* * *

It wasn’t so rare for Nandor to go through long bouts of time without a familiar: he was rather picky about the people he surrounded himself with and while he didn’t enjoy performing menial tasks on his own such as getting dressed or taking out the trash, he preferred having to make do - even if it _was_ quite undignified - rather than burdening himself with a human he would have the urge to murder after a matter of mere days. 

What was rare for Nandor was feeling lonely.

He was used to watching Nadja and Laszlo being warm and loving towards one another - in a way, the steadfastness of their relationship was just as comforting as that of their presence in his life, consolidated by centuries of living together at that point. Ever since Guillermo had left, though, Nandor found himself looking at his roommates with barely disguised envy - the only thing that had changed, it was that he didn’t have Guillermo by his side anymore to make him feel less of a third wheel, to share eyerolls with whenever his friends got randy outside of their crypt, to play chess and retire to a corner with.

Of course, everyone had quickly understood what was the issue - even Colin fucking Robinson.

Two plus two equals four.

The Earth is round.

The sky is not actually blue.

_Nandor the Relentless misses a fucking familiar._

It was a bit more than just pathetic, the way he daily thought of Guillermo and how he couldn’t help it; the months passed and the hurt didn’t mellow even a little - it only intensified, if possible - and he grew more and more nervous, snappish, irritable.

He was convinced he would be facing an intervention soon as he made his way to the door, a deep frown etched in the middle of his forehead while he contemplated draining himself whoever had come knocking on their door - just to spite Nadja for calling him a stupid bloody donkey (even if, at least to himself, he could admit that he was rather behaving like one).

To say that he hadn’t been expecting to see Guillermo himself stand on the porch would have been reductive.

Only that the man standing in front of him wasn’t the same one whose absence tormented him - he wasn’t even a man anymore.

He was a _vampire_.

It seemed… 

_Wrong._

“What happened?”

“He didn’t expect me to slash his throat open while he bit into mine” Guillermo stepped in, still unused to the strange feeling that thresholds had to them, almost like a vibration that ran up his ankles to reach the base of his spine - why that was a detail nobody had ever seen fit to tell him about? Why were there still so many things to discover about vampirism, even after an entire decade of servitude? His ignorance only served to cement his belief that Nandor had never actually meant to turn him, otherwise he would surely have prepared him for such feelings and sensations - right? “I didn’t want to die”

“But you _are_ dead” 

“You know what I meant”

Of course he did but Nandor shrugged anyway, it wasn’t his fault if Guillermo was literally dead: a walking corpse feeding off on human blood like an annoying mosquito, some kind of parasite that humans didn’t even know they needed to seek protection from - not that Nandor was ungrateful about how, at some point, the tide had turned and vampires had become the stuff of legends rather than a real fear: it was nice being able to go out at night and have a snack in the park without being afraid that someone would recognise the signs and murder you.

He even doubted about the other’s words, about how it hadn’t been al planned even if the ragged wound at his throat that was still healing seemed to agree with that version of the facts: if Guillermo had wanted to be turned so badly, he could have drained a vampire of all their blood and drank it after slashing his wrists to bleed out - it really seemed a stupid plan to let himself be mauled, running the risk of being murdered, when there were so many other ways he could have achieved his goal. Guillermo was very smart, he surely would have come up with alternatives right? So, it really must have been an accident.

Though, Guillermo could also be really silly.

Frankly, Nandor had no idea about what to believe.

“Why are you here?”

“I need… help” a place where to stay; people to lean on; space to figure himself out safely - surely he didn’t need to spell it all out, right? Though, maybe he did: Nandor could be so oblivious sometimes, it made Guillermo wonder about whether he had always been like that and had ruled a country despite his character or eternity had chipped away at him.

It made Guillermo wonder about whether he would change too.

“You’ll have to makedo without a coffin for now”

At least Nandor wasn’t offering him one of the moldy, half-rotten ones they kept in the basement for reasons that were still rather unclear to Guillermo; he had always thought it would be in case of guests happened to stay overday in the house but if that had been the case, Nandor would have offered him one right there and then - or maybe even someone as oblivious as the other vampire could be recognised that after giving him the best years of his life, he deserved something better than a rotting casket to spend the day in “It’s fine, I’ve been sleeping in my car a lot”

Nandor shook his head at that, trying to convey disapprovement even as his dead heart squeezed in his chest at the idea of Guillermo sleeping in his car like some kind of hobo - at the idea of his familiar preferring such an uncomfortable life to coming back home and resuming his duties, as if serving his Master had been a worse perspective than being homeless “I thought you’d go back to your mother”

“Me too”

The dejected shrug the other gave only made the tension in Nandor’s chest grow “You can sleep in the blue room” the nice room, the one that he had made Guillermo deep clean every now and again to make sure the faded blue tapestries didn’t lose what was left of their dull shine “Have you eaten yet?”

“No”

That wasn’t good “You have to eat”

“I’m aware, I was a little busy trying to get somewhere safe”

Nandor could ignore the sharpness in the other’s voice for now, relieved that the other hadn’t skipped eating because of some sudden revulsion towards the idea of feeding on humans; Guillermo wouldn’t have been the first vampire who had died of starvation, unable to move past the monstrosity of their new life.

“Look, can I just..” Guillermo sighed heavily “I need a shower”

“Yeah, you do. You know where the bathrooms are” the glare that the other sent him at those words confused Nandor: had Guillermo wanted him to… help?

Nadja peeked out of the fancy room once she heard the other’s heavy steps disappear upstairs “Was that-?”

“Yes”

Laszlo let out a long whistle “Well, isn’t this quite the turn of events?”

“I’ll call for pizza” Colin Robinson offered, phone already in hand “Maybe he’ll be lucky and the delivery person will be a virgin though, it’s extremely unlikely: delivery people tend to have their own means of transport and that makes them quite popular with those who want-”

Nandor followed Guillermo upstairs before his legs gave out.

Fucking Colin Robinson and his fucking snacking habits.

* * *

_iii._

Guillermo ghosted his fingers along the edge of the coffin, almost afraid of leaving behind smudges on the beautifully lacquered wood, gleaming black like onyx in the middle of the blue room - _his_ room, officially.

 _His crypt_.

Thinking the words alone gave him a little thrill, it reawakened that part of him that had been buried beneath years of thankless servitude; of sleepless nights spent turning his back on human nature; of endless days wasted in solitude, yearning for the dark. At some point, this is what he had wanted more than anything else in his life - more than his life itself or more than a human one, at least.

“Open it” Nandor encouraged.

Despite his heightened senses that screamed at Guillermo whenever someone was in his vicinity, Nandor’s whisper in his ear still made him jerk in surprise as if it had come out of the blue to rub satiny and liquid against his eardrum. He curled expert hands on the wood, digits pressing along the seam like thousands of times during his servitude; pushing the lid open came to him as easy as turning down the covers of a bed, it was all muscle memory and practice “Oh”

“Do you like it?” Nandor crowded closer to Guillermo’s back, his chest brushing against the soft sweater the other was wearing; the other wasn’t warm anymore - _he would never be warm anymore_ \- but still the proximity of their bodies made him feel something in the pit of his belly, as if the ghost of Guillermo's warmth was still clinging to him "I thought the blue lining would go well with the decor of your crypt"

It did "I do. I like it - a lot" Nandor must have modified the order for the lining after Guillermo had paid; he had chosen a bland white padding, not seeing why he should have spent more for something that nobody else but him would see "Thank you" he murmured, turning his head to look up at the other vampire - if possible, Nandor looked even more beautiful; it was stupid, his hearing and his sense of smell had improved but his eyesight hadn’t, as the glasses perched on his nose proved: Nandor looked just the same as he always had - devastatingly, unfairly handsome.

The excited clapping did take a bit away from the image of the suave and sexy vampire, though.

“Good! I was afraid you would be angry”

“I’m not, this is a nice surprise - but next time ask me, alright?”

“No, it’s not alright! It would ruin the surprise!”

On any other night, Guillermo would have (fruitlessly) tried to explain to Nandor the value of privacy and of personal choice but he finally had a coffin, in a room of his own that was shaping up to be a nice and cosy crypt and, in the end, even if Nandor hadn’t been the one to turn him into a vampire he still was going to live under the same roof as him - it was too good of a night to ruin it with a fight.

* * *

It was hard to ignore the way Guillermo’s mind called out to him through the aether - even if he hadn’t been awake and listening on the other’s breathing out of habit (no matter than Guillermo didn’t need to breathe anymore, that was the kind of reflex that would never truly fade), the other’s mental screams would have woken him up and drawn him into his crypt - warm and inviting just as his own, despite the somber coolness of the royal blue that dominated it.

Maybe Nandor found it so comforting because of how he had always loved the colour blue on his familiar; whenever he thought of him, in his mental landscape he wore the rarely seen pastel blue sweater that Nandor knew to be incredibly soft only because of the way he had surreptitiously ran his fingers along the wool abandoned in the laundry room, waiting for Guillermo to load it in the washing machine.

He pushed the lid open, revelling in the smoothness of the new latches.

Guillermo’s face was twisted with pain, his usually soft features hardened by whatever image was plaguing his oneiric landscape made Nandor’s digits tingle with the need to touch the other man and slip into his unconscious - invading Guillermo’s dreams had been so much easier when he had been just human, his mind easily overpowered. Not that Nandor had ceded to temptation often, torn between genuine disinterest and not liking the way his familiar’s dreams had been a constant reminder of the fact that he had promised Guillermo that he would turn him one day.

That day had come and gone.

And Nandor hadn’t kept his promise, his guilt only made worse by the fact that he had never intended to do so.

He sighed and reached down into the coffin, careful of grasping Guillermoìs shirt as well as his wrist to avoid touching his bare skin; he gave it a gentle squeeze as he called out to him, trying to ground him into reality and draw him away from the nightmare - in hindsight, he really should have expected the stake that was thrust at his chest, stopping a mere inch from his tender flesh “It’s just me, Guillermo” Nandor murmured, his breath uselessly hitching in his throat “What kind of vampire sleeps with a stake on hand?” he teased in an attempt at making the other man relax.

“The kind who was a vampire slayer before dying, I guess” Guilermo answered, eyebrows still drawn together in a frown “I’m sorry”

“It’s okay - though, it would be nice if you put it down now”

“Oh, sorry” 

Nandor watched the way Guillermo carelessly chucked the stake somewhere inside his coffin - it looked like he needed to lecture the younger vampire about safety, especially when it came to weapons that could harm himself too and not just any eventual aggressor. 

Later, though. 

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Guillermo shrugged "It was just the attack"

 _The attack_ \- that was the way Guillermo referred to his turning, just like Nandor referred to his own; it made the older vampire wonder about how the younger one felt, whether Guillermo hated his new existence as a vampire just like Nandor had been afraid he would "Do you hate him?"

"Of course I do: he killed me"

"I would have killed you too, if I had been the one turning you" and then Guillermo would have loathed him - he would have turned on him, full of anger and hatred for having taken from him the gift of human life - of warmth, of sunshine, of the food the other liked so much. 

Guillermo frowned "It would have been different"

"Not really"

"Yes really" he sat up "You wouldn't have torn open my throat with the intention of _murdering_ me - I hope so, at least. You would have made it nice and comfortable, something I could remember fondly"

Guillermo wasn't wrong; turning his familiar hadn't really been a promise Nandor had had any intentions to keep but those rare times he had actually entertained the idea, he had always imagined scented candles, a nest of pillows and blankets, a snack ready for when Guillermo would wake up burning with an unfamiliar thirst that he would have to learn to deal with for the rest of his existence, until the memory of those glazed doughnuts and melting ice-creams Guillermo was so fond of lost their shine and the mere thought of human food would be enough to make his stomach turn "I suppose"

"I would have loved you for it"

"Did you?"

"What?"

"Ever love me"

Guillermo closed his eyes and his shoulders bent lower, burdened by the invisible weight of all the times he had imagined - _hoped_ \- that he and Nandor would have a conversation just like that "I think I used to think myself in love with you"

"No more?" He didn't know why that implication made his long-dead heart ache in his chest: he had never allowed himself to think about Guillermo romantically - the other man had been his familiar and feeling for him anything more than fondness would have been… scandalous. 

"I don't know" Guillermo admitted "Did you ever..?"

"I think I did - _I do_. I don't know" Nandor sighed, reaching out for the other's hand to grasp it in his own even if Guillermo wasn't going anywhere; his fingers were cold and hard as stone in his palm, their warm softness gone together with the reassuring thrumming of his heartbeat "It's complicated"

For once, Guillermo could understand "It is - for me too" there was the unknown in their path, haunted by the knowledge of a future that had been stolen from them by their own stubbornness and a vampire that hadn't been strong enough to kill the slayer in their grip. 

"Maybe we can figure it out together"

_Maybe._

Maybe there was something left, pieces they could pick up and glue back together.

"I would like that"

  
  



End file.
